The Vampire & Her Witch

”Ollie, none of us are just one thing,” Ashlynn said, startling him out of his inwardly spiralling thoughts. Picking up a loose twig from the ground, soft scratching sounds filled the air as the witch began to sketch a simple circle in the frost-covered dirt at her feet.

”Sometimes, I’m Lady Nyrielle’s Seneschal,” she explained, carving out a piece of the circle. ”As her Senescahl, I’m expected to attend to matters during the day while she hides herself away from the sun and can’t interact with the waking world. At those times, I speak with her voice to execute her will, or I act on my own, but always on her behalf,” she explained.

A Seneschal was the first among all of a vampire’s servants, standing even above their progeny, but it was always a subservient role. As Nyrielle’s Seneschal, she might be second only to Nyrielle within the Vale of Mists, but that was an authority and position that flowed entirely from her bond with Nyrielle. For some people, that would be enough to define their entire being, and no purpose could be greater in their lives, but Ashlynn’s life was far from that simple.

”Other times, I’m the Mother of Trees,” she added, carving out another piece of the circle.”I’m responsible for my own coven, and I walk the world with authority no less than the High Lords or True Vampires of the Eldritch world. The magic that flows from that shapes me in ways that are hard to describe, but I can’t deny that becoming the Mother of Trees has changed a part of me in ways that run just as deep as the blood bond I share with Mistress Nyrielle.”

”And I’m still ’Lady Ashlynn’ from Blackwell County,” she said as she carved out yet another piece of the circle. ”I still plan to seize control of Lothian March when I deal with Owain,” she added, her voice growing momentarily hard as her eyes narrowed at the thought of her rapidly approaching reunion with her former husband.

She supposed that a part of her circle should be labeled ’avenging ghost’, but doing so would only distract from the lesson she was trying to give. With a deep, shuddering breath, she did her best to clear away her lingering resentments and focus instead on what she wanted Ollie to learn from her example.

”All of these things are parts that make up the whole of who I am,” she said, tapping her comfortable Traveling Hat and smiling at the young man. ”Witches are used to wearing many hats. Heila is the Willow Witch, the famed Willow Whip and Champion of the Arena in the High Fen, and she’s also my lady-in-waiting. She’s all of those things and more.”

”Arena Champion?” Ollie said, blinking several times in confusion as he looked at the elegantly dressed lady-in-waiting who stood less than half his own height. ”Willow Whip?”

”I’ll tell you later,” Heila said with a mischievous smile on her lips. She hadn’t realized it at the time when she watched Talauia teasing Jacques, but there was a delicious sort of pleasure that came from having a ’little brother’ that was so much bigger than she was.

She knew her advantage of strength and experience wouldn’t last long. Talauia was decades older than Jacques, and it was unlikely the reptilian witch would ever catch up with his petite ’big sister’, but the gap between Heila and Ollie wouldn’t be nearly as large. But for the moment, as long as she held a little bit of advantage over the flame-haired young man, she intended to enjoy every minute of it.

”Maybe we can make it a tradition,” Heila teased excitedly, giving the heavy-bladed fighting knives at Ollie’s waist a playful tap. ”You can go fight in the arena for ten days to help win champions for Lady Nyrielle’s army.”

”Heila,” Ashlynn said with a frown that she forced herself to wear to suppress the giggle that wanted to erupt at the notion of sending a string of witches to High Lady Erna’s arena to constantly empty it of worthy champions. If she did, she might be the first coven in history to provoke a war with a High Lord for ’casually bullying’ them.

”What I meant to say, Ollie, is that if it’s important for you to become a knight because that’s part of the person you want to be,” Ashlynn said warmly. ”Then of course, you can still become a knight. I’ll bestow your seed of witchcraft at the start of your vigil, and when you rise from it, you will be both a knight and a witch of my coven. That is, assuming you’re willing to join the coven to become a witch?”

”Of course I’m willing,” Ollie said with a broad, toothy grin, smiling as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He didn’t realize until Ashlynn presented him with a different path just how much becoming a knight had come to mean to him.

Part of it was wrapped up in his desire to serve Ashlynn well, to repay her for everything she had done for him after they ran away from the Summer Villa together. Compared to the human soldiers they’d captured after her duel with Sir Broll, Ollie was living a much better life with the kind of privileges that he’d only ever dreamed of while scouring pots in the Lothian kitchens. For that alone, he felt a debt of gratitude that he could never truly repay.

But as his lessons with Thane continued and he worked more and more on turning a scattered group of refugees into a cohesive village, the dream of being a worthy knight and leader for those people, his people, became much, much more real than simply an idle fantasy.

But if he didn’t have to let go of his dream of becoming a worthy knight and he could also join Ashlynn’s coven as a witch... why would he say no to that?

”Um, can I ask one other question?” Ollie said after a few moments of thought. ”Can you help me understand what the difference is between being a witch and just being a sorcerer is? I thought that witches were born to it, but, since it’s possible to become one, then, what does it mean to become a witch?”